Movie Review: ‘Titli’

Movie Review: ‘Titli’

Rating: 4/5

Director: Kanu Behl

Cast: Ranvir Shorey,Shashank Arora, Amit Sial, Lalit Behl, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Prashant Singh

Official ‘Titli’ Movie trailer

‘Titli‘ is dark, grim and disturbingly scary. The best part is that debut Director Kanu Behl stays true to the genre, never once veering away from the intended impact he wanted to have on the audience.  Right from the opening scene, Behl, goes straight for your gut and unapologetically wrenches it out, even as he introduces you to a dysfunctional family living in Delhi.   The Characters, though dark, are real. They exist. On the surface, they function normally. But beneath, there is that deep longing to grab what does not belong to them.

A family is not always a haven. It does not always cherish and nourish. It can suck ​out ​ your soul, and whistle as it spits your husk out. That’s what the father and brothers of ‘Titli‘, the young protagonist in the film that bears his name, are to him: elders but not betters, people who lead by example, but into the abyss.

The film portraits a family which hasn’t yet been seen on the Bollywood screen before.  Consisting of three brothers and their father living in a shambled ‘home’ next to a ‘nullah’ that you reach after walking through a few claustrophobic, narrow lanes. The brothers live a guilt-ridden life as they earn their living through car jacking and hitting people. Vikram (Ranvir Shorey), the eldest brother, is always on an emotional boil as he vacillates between flying into a rage and shedding tears at his situation. Baawla (Amit Sial) is the middle brother who tries to mediate between Vikram and the youngest, Titli (Shashank Arora). Titli, though outwardly calm and timid, is trying to get out of this claustrophobic family situation, for a desperate breath of air.

Behl focuses on just this one family to tell his grim tale. There is the father played by Lalit Behl (the director’s father) who flits around the room when the brothers are speaking. He is either sipping tea, or nonchalantly having his lunch. Behl uses this character beautifully to portray to the viewer that this is no ordinary man. He knows what is happening because he is the one who has got them to this place of crime. Another haunting impact is of a photograph on a table staring down at the boys. Probably, that of their grandfather who would have been the first to go down this route!

The settings are so real you can almost feel the stench of crime. The house they live in is a stark reality of the poverty around us. Of course, you cannot condone the fact that they took to crime. That is the fascinating part that Behl focusses on.

The performances are excellent: from Raghuvanshi who channels hurt and bewilderment and stoicism in the face of an overwhelming situation, to Lalit Behl, who bids fair to be the creepiest, most parasitic Hindi cinema father, to the middle brother Sial who tries to keep the peace. Newcomer Shashank Arora lives and breathes Titli, the young fellow looking desperately for a way out. And Ranvir Shorey, as the oldest sibling whose violence is the most corrosive, yet the most heart-breaking, is outstanding as his expressions admirably switch from mad rage to utter despair in matter of seconds.

A Great story by Sharad Katariya and Kanu Behl combined with the editing of Namrata Rao delivers for those who love their cinema ‘real’.